Industrially supported projects, which are an important part of industrial design education, have been carried on with an increasing pace in universities in Turkey for a long time. This thesis develops strategies to improve collaborative projects with industry in industrial design education, by examining how collaboration member benefit from each other&rsquo / s and which problems do they encounter with collaboration / and to find out what the needs and expectations of all members are through a case study of graduation projects. As a case study, the graduation project course in the Department of Industrial Design at Middle East Technical University in 2005 spring semester was chosen, where collaboration with industry has been regularly held since 2002. Results of questionnaires with all collaboration members namely the students, educators and company representatives were evaluated in order to develop strategies. As a conclusion, implications to facilitate further developments of university- industry collaboration projects and academic schemes are reached.

This reserach attemptedbto investigate the epistemological beliefs held by Turkish students through gender, grade level, and fields of the study by using Hofer and Pintrich&#039 / s (1997) Frame work. A total of 1557 sixth, eighth, and tenth grade students from &Ccedil / ankaya district of Ankara participated in the study. Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire and Demographical Questionnaire were administered to the students in order to determine their epistemological belSiefs and their background caharcteristics. Four main conclusions can be drawn from the current study / epistemological beliefs are multidimensional, epistemological beliefs vary as a function of gender, grade level, and fields of study. Specifically girls were found to have more sophisticated beliefs in justification of knowledge than boys. Results also supproted the idea that epistemological beliefs develops over time.tenth grade students had more sophisticated beliefs in source of knowledge, certainty of knowledge, and development of knowledge compared to sixth and eighth grade students. Besides, findings of the study revealed differences in epistemological beliefs of students across different major fields of the study. The students attending to the mathematics-science fields were fiund to have more sophisticated beliefs about justification of knowledge than the students attending to literature-social science fields.

The purpose of this research is to investigate undergraduate students&rsquo / mental models about the quantization of physical observables. The research was guided by ethnography, case study, and content analysis integrated to each other. It focused on second-year physics and physics education students, who were taking the Modern Physics course at the Department of Physics, at Middle East Technical University. Wide range of data was collected by interview, observation, test, diary, and other documents during 2008-2 academic semester. The findings obtained from the qualitative analysis of the data indicated the following conclusions: (1) Students displayed six different mental models, defined as Scientific Model, Primitive Scientific Model, Shredding Model, Alternating Model, Integrative Model, and Evolution Model, about the quantization of physical observables. (2) Students&rsquo / models were influenced by the external sources such as textbooks (explanations in textbooks, bringing textbook into the classes, and the use of one or both textbooks), instructional elements (explanations in instruction, taking notes in classes, and studying before and after the classes+taking notes in classes+attending classes regularly), topic order, and classmate / they were influenced by the internal sources such as meta-cognitive elements, motivation, belief (the nature of science and the nature of quantum physics concepts), and familiarity and background about the concepts. (3) The models displayed by students developed with the contribution of these sources in different proportions. Furthermore, although upgrading in models was observed within the cases of quantization, students&rsquo / mental models about the quantization of physical observables are context dependent, and stable during the semester.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between preferences of multiple intelligences, perceptual and social learning styles, and English as foreign language proficiency. Two self-report questionnaires were administered to a total of 123 participants. The results showed that dominant intelligence preference was inter-personal and major learning-style preference was kinesthetic. Pearson correlation results revealed statistically significant positive relations between interpersonal intelligence and group learning style / linguistic intelligence and individual learning style / logical-mathematical intelligence and individual learning style / intra-personal intelligence and individual learning style / inter-personal intelligence and kinesthetic learning style in addition to negative relations between interpersonal intelligence and individual learning style / musical intelligence and individual learning style, and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence and tactile learning style. This indicates that pedagogical implications should consider individuals&rsquo / intelligences and learning style preferences, and further studies are needed to investigate the interactions among preferences of styles and intelligences. Finally, multiple regression results showed that logical-mathematical intelligence preference and visual learning style preference were the primary contributors to the English proficiency. Since no previous research was found comparing preferences of multiple intelligences and perceptual and social learning styles of foreign language learners, this study provided data-driven evidence for the interrelations between them. Those relationships as well as factorial structure for preferences for multiple intelligences and learning styles were discussed. Moreover, the need for further development of the questionnaires and the need for mixed method data collection were emphasized. Implications for interactions among learning styles and multiple intelligences were discussed.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of instruction with problem posing on tenth grade students&rsquo / probability achievement and attitudes towards probability. The study was conducted in Nallihan-Ankara with a total of 82 tenth grade students who were enrolled in one Public High School and one Anatolian High School. Twenty-seven of the subjects received instruction with Problem Posing (PPI), and fifty-five of the subjects received instruction with Traditional Method (TM). The following measuring instruments were used to collect data: Probability Attitude Scale (PAS), Probability Achievement Test (PAT) and Mathematics Attitude Scale (MAS). The PAS and MAS were administered as both pre and post-tests. The PAT was administered as post-test. In addition, students&rsquo / overall academic year of 2004-2005 Mathematics and Turkish course grades were collected from the school administration in order to interpret the effects of those grades on students&rsquo / probability achievement. The results of the study indicated that: There was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of students received instruction with problem posing and those received instruction with traditional method in terms of probability achievement, attitudes toward probability and mathematics in the favor of PPI.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible relationships between pre-service science teachers&#039 / understanding of nature of science (NOS) and their personal characteristics / understanding of nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI), epistemological world views, self-efficacy beliefs regarding science teaching, attitudes towards science teaching, metacognitive awareness level and faith/worldview schemas. The sample of the present study were 60 PSTs that are 3rd year students at elementary science education department at a public university in the Marmara region. The sample was chosen by using purposive sampling from the PSTs enrolled in the &quot / Nature of Science and History of Science&quot / course. Using a descriptive and associational case study design PSTs&rsquo / understandings of NOS, understanding of NOSI, epistemological world views, metacognitive awareness levels, self-efficacy beliefs, attitudes toward science teaching, and faith/worldviews were determined through different questionnaires and the associations between variables were investigated. Qualitative and quantitative questionnaires were analyzed and statistical analyses were conducted to see whether there is an association between PSTs&#039 / level of understanding of NOS and their personal characteristics. The results of the study revealed that PSTs understanding of NOS and NOSI were highly related. Similarly, self-efficacy beliefs regarding science teaching, metacognitive awareness levels and faith/worldviews of the PSTs were found to be significantly related to understanding of NOS. On the other hand, there were not any significant associations between PSTs&#039 / epistemological world views, attitudes towards science teaching and understanding of NOS.

The current study aimed to investigate the effect of using metacognitive strategies embedded in explicit&ndash / reflective NOS instruction to improve NOS understanding of pre-service science teachers. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) (Schraw &amp / Dennison, 1994) and Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS-C) (Lederman et al., 2001) were used both at the beginning and at the end of the study as a pre-test&ndash / post-test, comparison group, quasi-experimental design. A total of 33 pre-service science teachers (PSTs), 24 were female and 9 were male agreed to join the study voluntarily. These students were selected for this study while they were enrolling at their 5th semester in which they attended Methods of Teaching Science I course offered by the faculty of education at Middle East Technical University. Participants were divided into two groups namely comparison and intervention group. Explicit reflective NOS instruction was used in both groups, but metacognitive strategies additionally used in intervention group. Data analysis demonstrated that explicit reflective NOS instruction enhanced the development of understanding of NOS in both groups. Results also showed that metacognitive strategies improved the metacognitive awareness of intervention group participants. Although four of these metacognitive strategies and explicit reflective NOS instruction in present study provided a substantial increase in NOS understandings of PSTs in intervention group, chi-square analysis showed statistically no significant difference between comparison and intervention group participants&rsquo / post-test results.

The purpose of this study was to describe and explore the nature and frequency of the interaction and the factors affecting interaction in language classrooms. This qualitative study was conducted in a private language course in Ankara, Turkey. The sample consisted of 6 teachers. The data were collected through video-camera, semi-structred interview and demographic information log. To tackle the complexity of the raw data, data were first subjected to constant comparison analysis. Second, all results were tabulated and interpreted. The results indicated the amount of teacher talk outweighed student talk and teachers spent on average one third of the lesson on lecturing. Besides, it was observed teachers spent approximately 3 % of the lesson on questioning and teachers ask more low-level questions than high-level questions. In addition, the results revealed teacher-initiated interaction outweighed student-initiated interaction and both teacher-initiated and student-initiated interactions outweighed student-student interaction. It was also observed male students interact with teacher more than females. Lastly, the results indicated teachers criticized males more than females. In addition, the results about the nature of interaction indicated students used the method of shouting the answer or idea directly most as the way of initiating interaction with teacher. Furthermore, they had most interaction with teachers so as to ask questions related to the lesson. Also, the results showed the teachers used the method of addressing the whole class as the way of initiating interaction with students. Finally, the teachers used the questioning strategy most as a means of initiating interaction with students.

This study aims to find differences in the perceived usage and importance of the Internet within characteristics of students. METU undergraduate students having a proper Internet connection were defined as population, and asked to answer the online questionnaire about perceived usage and importance of the Internet. For 653 eligible answers, Factorial ANOVA and independent samples t-test were used to compare mean scores of dependent variables across three independent variables: gender, accommodation type and faculty. Results indicate that although genders spent equal times on the Internet, their perceived usage and importance of the Internet differs. Females&rsquo / perceived usage and importance of the Internet for academic works and instant messaging are more than males, whereas males are using Internet for seeking current information like news, sending content to interactive web services and playing online games. This study also states that there is no evidence of a statistically significant difference for amount of the Internet usage between 3 accommodation types, METU Dormitories with high speed Internet connection, house with family or relatives, house with friends or alone. However, it is observed that students staying at METU Dormitories stated more instant messaging usage than that of staying at house with friends or alone. Between faculties, there is evidence that students from Faculty of Education are using Internet for academic course work more than the other faculties. Finally, students who are living in campus are more satisfied with the access speed to university local area network and Turkish National Research Network.

The main aim of this study is to look for trends in the instructional technology field in Turkey and to visualize general tendencies in the field in research topics, research types, and methodologies. Content analysis research design was used in this study. In this study, the unit of analysis was MS theses and PhD. theses published in instructional technology departments in Turkey, and the researcher aimed to analyze all of the population. Hence, 215 MS theses and 32 PhD. theses were analyzed in this study. The data were categorized according to characteristics of the MS theses and PhD. theses (author, university, advisor, and publication year), research topics, research methods, sample type, sample size, data collection methods and research settings. These categories were statistically analyzed. In these statistical analyses both frequencies of these categories and fluctuations of these categories in time were analyzed. The findings of the study indicated that most of the MS theses were published in the Middle East Technical University and most of the dissertations were published in Ankara University. In addition to this, most of the MS theses and PhD. theses used quantitative research methods, and experimental studies were the most popular type. Not surprisingly, the study results revealed that convenient sampling was the most preferred sampling method and most of the studies used 31 &ndash / 100 subjects in their samples. Moreover, questionnaires, aptitude tests and interview schedules were the most common data gathering instruments used, and higher education was the most preferred research environment for the studies analyzed. Finally, most of the MS theses and PhD. theses focused on delivery system media formats, comparison studies and learner variables.